Survey: More citizens using transit, bikes

OTTAWA — Cars remain the main way people get around, but more are cycling and using mass transit, a huge study of how residents make trips in Ottawa and Gatineau has found.

Daily trips by bicycle and transit saw big gains as more people went from place to place between 2005 and 2011, according to results from a survey of more than 25,000 people.

The number of daily bicycle trips shot up 40 per cent in that period to 52,000, the survey found, while daily transit trips increased nine per cent to 395,700.

The increase in transit and cycling trips “is a strong reflection of the positive investments the city has made to provide sustainable transportation options,” said John Moser, the city’s general manager of planning and growth management, in a memo to councillors when the results were released on Thursday.

Transit survey

Graphic: How the Capital commutes (Dennis Leung, Ottawa Citizen)

The trends should continue as work progresses on projects such as the city’s $2.1-billion light-rail system, Moser stated.

With transit being used for almost half of trips to downtown Ottawa in the morning rush period, there’s a need to get on with light-rail as “we’re at capacity right now in terms of pushing transit through there at peak hours,” said Coun. Diane Deans, chair of the city’s transit commission.

More trips were also made in cars during the six years between surveys, but there was less growth, percentage-wise. Trips made by drivers saw a 4.7-per-cent increase and those by passengers were up 1.4 per cent, though together they still accounted for more than 2 million daily trips in 2011.

The survey found daily trips made by walking fell by almost three per cent to 289,900. That’s something to be analyzed, said Ahmad Subhani, senior project manager for transportation strategic planning with the city.

It’s possible that people are switching to other “green” modes, which isn’t much of a concern, “but if they are switching their mode from walk to car, that may need to be investigated” to find out why, said Subhani.

Planners estimate there are 2.9 million trips in a 24-hour period in the region that takes in Ottawa, Gatineau and the Quebec regional municipality of des Collines-de-l’Outaouais — everything from a walk to the grocery store to commutes from the suburbs to a job downtown. That’s up nearly four per cent from 2005.

Despite their gains, the share of trips made through transit and cycling remains well back of the car, which accounted for almost 72 per cent of all trips made over a 24-hour period.

The daily share of transit trips increased to 13.6 per cent from 12.9 per cent in 2005, while the share of cycling trips in the region grew to 1.8 per cent from 1.4 per cent in 2005.

The survey found that Kanata-Stittsville is the most self-contained of the suburban communities, with the highest rate of “internalization,” or the per cent of trips that start and end in the same district.

Places outside the Greenbelt “are really satellite cities that need to be designed to have things so that local people living there don’t necessarily have to travel outside their area,” said Kanata North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson, who chairs council’s transportation committee.

The $1-million Origin-Destination Survey was conducted through 10-minute interviews with more than 25,000 residents in the fall of 2011.

It’s to be used to plan and improve infrastructure and to aid in transportation planning such as upcoming reviews of the City of Ottawa’s transportation master plan, as well as its cycling and pedestrian plans.

It will also factor into decisions about the targets the city will pursue for various modes of transportation, said Kornel Mucsi, the city’s program manager for transportation strategic planning.